Greetings from the Partnership and Capacity Strengthening (P/CS) team and welcome to our periodical newsletter on CRS and partner achievements. This issue includes information about:

• Upcoming Partnership Scorecard application deadlines
• A new set of dashboards that compile and present current and recent P/CS data
• The release of two resources documenting P/CS in two multi-year program efforts: What to Consider When Establishing a Strong Private and Public Partnership in Water Access and Management (Madagascar) and A Journey of Partnership and Capacity Strengthening with the Government of Vietnam
• The launch of a light-hearted and easy-to-understand video about CRS’ approach to capacity strengthening and the Institute for Capacity Strengthening. The video is suitable for new partners and staff, or as a refresher for the rest of us.

The Partnership and Capacity Strengthening team

Partnership Scorecard

The P/CS team also wishes to thank all CRS country programs and partners that are using the Partnership Scorecard, and those who plan to use this tool by the end of the fiscal year, September 30, 2017.

CRS’ Partnership Scorecard is a unique tool that helps individual country programs and the Agency better understand and further improve relations with partners. The Partnership Scorecard also offers partners and CRS the opportunity to provide regular mutual feedback and to work together to address any areas for improvement. The P/CS unit has received annual partner targets from CPs related to the Scorecard use and we thank each country program for trying to reach those targets. This effort will help document progress in the Agency’s partnership competency.

For more information reach out to Linda Gamova (linda.gamova@crs.org). 

As a global facilitator of partnerships and technical and organizational capacity strengthening, CRS has a unique ability to measure and to articulate P/CS investments and returns. Using existing data (including from Partnership Scorecards) from FY2013 to present, CRS has developed a first set of dashboards (i.e., dashboard 1; dashboard 2; dashboard 3) that integrate and visually represent data about partners (e.g., type of organization, affiliation, and other basic demographic data), expenditures for capacity strengthening, and ranking by Sub Recipient Financial Management Policy (SRFMP) score. Data can be viewed in aggregate or by separate regions and years. Currently the dashboards use only descriptive data; future dashboards will provide more integrated, analytical and predictive functions.

This kind of evidence can inform program-related decision-making and strengthen the Agency’s competitive advantage. CRS staff are encouraged to use these data widely, for example in budgeting, proposal development, program design, partner engagement, and marketing and fundraising materials.

All CRS staff can access these dashboards (i.e., dashboard 1; dashboard 2; dashboard 3); those seeking additional dashboards or data can email partnership@crs.org. P/CS has convened a working group to help identify useful data and to facilitate data use.

What to Consider When Establishing a Strong Private and Public Partnership in Water Access and Management examines the CRS-led implementation of Madagascar’s Rural Access to New Opportunities for Health and Prosperity (RANO HamPivoatra or RANO HP) and Rural Access to New Opportunities for Health and Water Management (RANOn’ala) projects (2009 to 2013). Both projects improved access to reliable and safe water and sanitation services in targeted areas, in part by establishing public-private partnerships. While not without challenges, about 90 percent of the systems were still functioning two years after the end of project funding.

This document is a resource for technical and business development staff, but also may be used for external communications or partnering. It presents the projects’ achievements and limitations, as well as strategies that were effective in Madagascar and could be adapted for other contexts. What to Consider complements a handbook developed by CRS’ Water, Environment, and Sanitation (WES) unit to provide stepwise guidance to design and implementing WASH PPPs.

A Journey of Partnership and Capacity Strengthening with the Government of Vietnam documents the effectiveness and implementation of the working group approach as applied across dozens of projects and five lines of programming: inclusion of people with disabilities, strengthening community-based parent associations, mine risk education and victim assistance, health system strengthening network model, and disaster risk reduction. The paper discusses several characteristics and knowledge, skills, and attitudes that appear to be critical to successful implementation of the working group approach. Readers can use this paper to consider if and how the approach could benefit their own activities.

CRS first successfully employed the working group approach in Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of peacebuilding efforts after the war. The approach is rooted in the understanding that those most affected by a challenge are best-positioned to address that challenge. Members of local society and leadership who influence and/or are affected by a situation help to identify and steer development interventions, and to lead grassroots implementation — the successes and limitations of which inform policy development and learning. Subsequent implementation efforts continue to advance the cycle of practice, learning and policy development.

As a direct result of the working group approach in Vietnam, international-standard computer training facilities have been established in three higher education institutions (60–70% of these IT graduates are employed in the field); more than 140,000 children and 79,000 teachers, parents, and community members have been trained in mine risk education; and a network model of comprehensive care for vulnerable children has been included in Vietnam’s National Plan of Action for Children (2011–2015) to benefit 2,200 children in eight provinces.